ABTTF President: “Whilst our country accepts this special status on the one hand, on the other it is gradually eroding our educational autonomy through the policies and practices it has pursued for years. Our schools are being closed down one by one on the pretext of low number of pupils; Turkish families face difficulties when enrolling their children in our own schools; and the Turkish language, a fundamental element of our education system, is now being portrayed as a tool for ‘‘compulsory homogenisation’’.”
The problems faced by the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace in the field of education have come to the fore once again with the start of the 2026–2027 school year.
MP for Rodopi Özgür Ferhat, met with Regional Director of Education for Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Marigoula Kosmidu and Head of the Minority Education Office Vasileios Simeonidis, to discuss staffing requirements for schools, the placement of teachers and the current state of minority education.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Education, Religious Affairs and Sport Nikos Papaioannou stated whilst responding to a parliamentary question tabled by Georgios Rountas, an MP for the NIKI Party in the Hellenic Parliament, that ‘minority education’ in Western Thrace is based on the Treaty of Lausanne, and that state schools and ‘minority schools’ have different legal statuses.
Papaioannou further claimed that among the characteristics of the current “minority education system” is “the exclusive dominance of the Turkish language with the aim of forcibly homogenising the minority”.
The Greek Ministry of Education had closed a further eight Turkish minority primary schools in the 2026–2027 school year, citing a pupil count of fewer than nine. Consequently, the number of Turkish minority primary schools in Western Thrace had fallen to 76.
“It is significant that Deputy Minister Papaioannou clearly indicated that the education system of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace is based on the Treaty of Lausanne and that Turkish minority schools have a different legal status from public schools. This is because the education system of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace has a special and autonomous structure guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne. However, whilst our country accepts this special status on the one hand, on the other it is gradually eliminating our educational autonomy through the policies and practices it has pursued for years. Our schools are being closed down one by one on the pretext of low number of pupils; Turkish families face difficulties when enrolling their children in our own schools; and the Turkish language, a fundamental element of our education system, is now being portrayed as a tool for ‘‘compulsory homogenisation’’. The Turkish language is our mother tongue and an integral part of our identity and educational autonomy. “Our country, Greece, must put an end to these practices aimed at abolishing our educational autonomy and, by fulfilling its obligations arising from the Treaty of Lausanne, must restore the fully autonomous structure of our education system’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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